In this Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 photo, Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during an introduction of the new iPhone 5 in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

In this Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 photo, Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during an introduction of the new iPhone 5 in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Photo: Eric Risberg

Image 4 of 4

FILE-In this Friday, Sept. 21, 2012, file photo, a staff member of Apple Inc. shows the iPhone 5 to customers at the Apple store in Hong Kong. Apple Inc. said Monday Sept. 24 2012, that it has sold more than 5 million units of the new iPhone 5 in the three days since its launch, less than analysts had expected. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

FILE-In this Friday, Sept. 21, 2012, file photo, a staff member of Apple Inc. shows the iPhone 5 to customers at the Apple store in Hong Kong. Apple Inc. said Monday Sept. 24 2012, that it has sold more than 5

MALTA — Apple Inc. and worldwide demand for its iPhone and iPad — and maybe soon iTV — may be behind top-secret efforts to land a second major semiconductor manufacturing facility in the Capital Region.

Since the fall, consultants representing a major high-tech manufacturer have been pitching New York economic development officials a plan for a 3.2 million-square-foot production facility that would likely cost as much as $10 billion to build. Sites under consideration include Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta, which is already home to a $4.6 billion computer chip factory, and a site in Oneida County next to SUNY IT.

Although the plans — dubbed Project Azalea — became public last month, the exact identity of the company that wants to build the factory has never been revealed.

That's likely because Deloitte, the consulting firm leading an international search for a suitable site for the facility, hasn't yet disclosed its client, even to state and local officials who have signed strict non-disclosure agreements

Increasingly, though, it appears that whoever is behind Project Azalea wants to build the mega factory to satisfy Apple, which had $156 billion in sales during the past year and is considered the world's most valuable company.

More Information

And, based on analyses by industry experts, the most likely scenario involves one of the companies that supplies computer chips to Apple for its iPhone and iPad devices and Macintosh computers — or a company vying to win Apple's business.

The idea that Foxconn, the Chinese company that assembles the iPhone and other products for Apple, is behind the site search, seems plausible — especially after Apple CEO Tim Cook said during an interview with NBC that Apple wants to start shifting its manufacturing back to the United States. Foxconn, which had previously denied any plans for a new U.S. facility, said it now was considering expanding in the U.S. to satisfy its customers' needs.

Apple is Foxconn's largest customer, and Foxconn has been expanding its reach into the market for LCD TV screens. Apple is also expected to soon unveil a TV device, which many believe will be called the iTV. And more than likely, Foxconn would supply the LCD panels for those TVs. Some LCD panel factories in Japan have cost nearly $10 billion to build.

However, industry insiders say that it is more likely that one of the major chip suppliers is looking at this region for a site to build a factory to satisfy Apple's incredible demands for processors for its products.

"We are clearly not talking about an assembly factory here. We are rather talking about very advanced manufacturing facility, which is likely to be a state-of-the-art semiconductor fab," said Anton Shilov, news editor of high-tech website X-bit Labs. "I don't really believe that Foxconn is actually interested in building a large assembly factory with tens of thousands of workers in the U.S."

It just so happens that Apple is in the midst of making some major decisions on who will provide those chips. Two of Apple's major chip suppliers right now are Samsung of Korea and Intel of California.

However, the tech media outlets have been reporting that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has been angling for the business that Samsung has with Apple.

TSMC does face one major hurdle, but the issue is the reason that many believe that TSMC could be looking to build a new U.S. plant, possibly in New York, which provided a $1.4 billion incentive package to GlobalFoundries. TSMC cannot supply as many chips as Apple would need at its existing factories, and Apple, of course, increasingly appears to want more of its products, or parts of its products, made in the U.S.

"A plant in the U.S. could sort out TSMC capacity problems if it could be online fast enough," said Nick Farrell, an Apple expert who writes for TechEye.net.